12-08-2011, 03:00 PM

Hi guys ... newbie here. I will try and keep this as short as possible, but want to explain everything. I have an iMac, OSX 10.6.8, 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. I primarily use Chrome as my browser, but also have Firefox and Safari on here.

About a week ago, when I would try and go to certain websites, the page would go to a Charter Business DNS Update page. It seemed as if the Charter page was hijacking the browser. I contacted Charter and explained that I am a residential customer, and not a business customer. They said the page is legit, and after 3 people there trying to help me, they were no help.

Note that the Charter page does this with all three browsers.

I belong to a small iMac YahooGroup and started talking with them about it. One person had me install and run a DNS Changer program, in case it was a trojan horse. There was no trojan found.

He also had me install and run ClamXav, which found about 30 items, which I quarantined. The problem still persisted. So, the group feels I should do a clean install of the OS, since I have not been able to find the problem and fix it.

Before I do that,, I am wondering if I should try uninstalling all browsers and then do a clean install. Do you think that would fix it? If so, are there steps to take to uninstall all 3 browsers, and all associated files with them?

Side note: I typically will have 20-30 tabs open at a time ... working on many different projects. Due to the problems, and shutting down Chrome last night, this morning I only have 6 tabs open and have not gotten the Charter page for hours. Could having too many tabs open have anything to do with this?

I would appreciate any and all input and help, as I really wish I could solve this without having to do a clean install of the OS.

HUGz! Jules

12-08-2011, 03:01 PM

Oh ... here is the page that seems to hijack the pages.

12-08-2011, 03:40 PM

It sounds as if your isp has updated its DNS servers with a different address.

It may be that this update can be done automatically on windows, but on the Mac, OSX will not allow applications to update your DNS settings - one of the ways OSX is just more secure than Windows

Ask them what the addresses of the the servers are and update the settings yourself. The DNS settings are in System Preferences > Network

Click on the Advanced button and then select the DNS tab from the dialogue that pops up

12-08-2011, 03:50 PM

Originally Posted by louishen

It sounds as if your isp has updated its DNS servers with a different address.

It may be that this update can be done automatically on windows, but on the Mac, OSX will not allow applications to update your DNS settings - one of the ways OSX is just more secure than Windows

Ask them what the addresses of the the servers are and update the settings yourself. The DNS settings are in System Preferences > Network

Click on the Advanced button and then select the DNS tab from the dialogue that pops up

Okay, the first DNS number was right, but the second was wrong, so I changed that. I'll let you know if that works!

Thank you so much!!

12-08-2011, 05:28 PM

Louishen, it sure seems as if you have fixed the problem! So far not a single problem.

Thank you so much for your help, and saving me from having to do a clean install of the OS and all that entails!!!

Big HUGz! Jules